All posts tagged Baseball

Will Ferrell suited up for 10 Major League Baseball teams during spring training on Thursday and played every position as part of an HBO special from “Funny or Die” to support the fight against cancer. His efforts were closely followed on social media under the Twitter hashtag #FerrellTakesTheField.

The comedian, who co-stars with Kevin Hart in the upcoming movie “Get Hard,” did just about everything you could ask a major league player to do, from climbing the outfield fence, to tossing pitches, to joking around with the other guys on the field. He even bought hot dogs for fans. Read More »

Mark Cuban thinks that slugger Alex Rodriguez is getting a raw deal, and compared Major League Baseball to organized crime. Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks basketball team, told “Tonight Show” host Jay Leno that the decision to ban Rodriguez for more than 200 games for allegedly violating league rules prohibiting performance-enhancing drugs was “horrible.” Cuban declared “I think it’s disgraceful what Major League Baseball is trying to do to him.” Cuban conceded that A-Rod deserved to be suspended, but argued that the length of the suspension seemed “personal.” He also took a shot at MLB commissioner Bud Selig, saying that baseball has become “Bud Selig’s mafia. He runs it the way he wants to run it.” Watch the video. Read More »

Chevrolet said it will display its new 2014 Silverado pickup truck and Impala full-size sedan at Comerica Park when the American League Champion Detroit Tigers play their home opener on Friday against the New York Yankees.

Cranes hoisted the vehicles onto high platforms at the ballpark, where Chevrolet has been the Tigers’ automotive sponsor since 2010. The sponsorship gives the car maker’s vehicles more exposure to consumers at the games and those watching on television.

Chevrolet has long said its brand is an American tradition similar to baseball — and hot dogs and apple pie.

As streaming video becomes more widespread, more parents are using the technology to “attend” their kids’ events and games when they can’t actually be present physically.

A growing number of parents are watching their kids’ Little League games this way. Scorekeeping applications such as GameChanger or iScore allow absent parents to watch what’s happening in real time via WiFi or cell phone, so if you’re traveling for business or stuck on a conference call, you can keep up with the game. Some applications allow email alerts or texts about activity by a particular player; other apps that allow sharing of live video include Knocking Live Video and Qik. Other parents use Skype to be virtually present at kids’ events.

In attempting to finalize our list, we spent considerable time debating the merits of plenty of memorable fictional ballplayers, eventually narrowing the squad to 19 players, a manager and an umpire. Since the story ran, we’ve received plenty of e-mails and Twitter messages from equally passionate readers, nominating characters they think we overlooked. With that in mind, here are the five candidates that just missed the cut. Read More »

When he was a boy growing up in Louisiana, the only theater Layon Gray had a chance to see was what came through on what’s known as “the Chitlin’ Circuit”—big, sentimental gospel musicals featuring African-American casts. When he told his family he was going into theater, they wanted to know if he would write like Tyler Perry—“It’s all they know,” he says.

But his new play “All-American Baseball Girls” at Manhattan’s Actors Temple Theatre, and will run in rep with his long-running drama “Black Angels Over Tuskegee,” is not a light comedy. Read More »

Two weeks ago, actress and singer Patti LuPone grabbed a cell phone out of the hand of an audience member who was texting during a performance of her current play, "Shows for Days." The bold move led to an outpouring of support from fans fed up with glowing screens. Ms. LuPone gives us her five rules of theater etiquette.